We're gonna make broccoli rabe orecchiette.
All we've done for the broccoli rabe
which is anticarcinogenic,
it's a cancer fighter in and of itself,
all we've done is boil it.
We call it blanching but really this is very bitter.
So I boil it a couple minutes
in a little bit of salted water,
put it in a cold bath and let it drain.
Pat it completely dry
and then we'll chop it up for our dish.
We're gonna make orecchiette or little ears.
Little ears of pasta, right?
You guys know this dish, it's a classic.
And in the pan here, I have some onion cooking.
Once the onion is sweat and translucent,
we can add our garlic to the pan.
Now, here's where the choices come in.
To keep this completely vegetarian
which I do for many, many friends and members of my family,
I start with the onion, I add the garlic
and then to spice it up, I add Calabrian chili paste.
Just a little bit of vinegar
and some chopped up chilies, right?
If you are a person that eats meat,
I actually took an audience vote on this and this won,
you can add this funny stuff.
This is called 'nduja.
'Nduja is, it's basically sausage paste.
It's like a salami paste.
You can spread this straight up on charred bread
and it's delicious.
You can use a couple of ounces in a dish
to add a little bit of salty flavor in the background
that is also adding heat at the same time.
So if you use 'nduja,
you are not going to use Calabrian chili paste.
If you're vegetarian, you're gonna go with the paste.
All right, so the audience chose.
We're doing the sausage paste
so I'm stirring that into the onion.
Now, we're going to add the garlic.
We don't put the garlic necessarily first
because we don't want the garlic to bitter or brown
before the onions have sweat out a bit.
For the pasta, this one is a good quality Italian pasta.
It's gonna take a little longer
than maybe some other brands.
So I'm gonna drop it kinda now
'cause this thing goes pretty quickly
like we're almost there, do you know what I mean,
'cause we've got the 'nduja melted, the onions are cooked.
So I'm gonna go ahead and drop him.
We always literally salt the pasta
when we add the pasta to the water.
So now we're going to add in the greens
and we always layer in our flavors.
So whenever I cook with dark greens,
we add a little hint of nutmeg.
It brings out the depth of flavor
in dark greens that are good for us.
Now we're just going to marry this guy
with everybody in the pan
just kind of folding it over again and again.
We don't wanna take it too far.
Now, what's delightful
if you're making the vegetarian version of this especially,
it adds such a layer of flavor.
Our semi-dried tomatoes.
We take our reserved little mugful
of our starchy pasta water.
We've undercooked this by a minute.
I'm turning the stove off
so I don't set the moppine on fire.
I won't be able to see you for about 30 seconds
because you know what happens to glasses
when they get too near the steam.
Pasta facial but I can't see.
Okay.
It's so true.
Oh gosh.
Okay, so now we're going to take
all of this sauce and all of the pasta,
the starchy cooking water,
our cheese
and a little extra drizzle of olive oil.
Good EVOO.
Nice fruity fatty olive oil.
Uh huh.
And this is why we undercook
because now we stir vigorously for like a minute
to get that all to marry
in that delicious hot tub of love we got going on.
Oh.
(applause)